


To Ride the Glory Trail Again

by ponderinfrustration



Series: Buckaroo Fringe [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adlock overtones, Alternate Universe - Historical, Character Death, Doctor John, Gen, Grown-Up Parentlock, Irene Adler as a Mother, Maudlin Reflection, Maudlin Violin Music, OFC - Freeform, Parentlock, Pneumonia, References to War, Riding Across Country, Shooting, Telegrams, foot and mouth disease, race against the clock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-21 15:12:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 18,914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3697046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderinfrustration/pseuds/ponderinfrustration
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>New York, 1914.</p><p>"I'm sure you're fit to go to Michigan."<br/>Sherlock is exhausted, and John is so done with everything. On top of that, their old enemy of foot and mouth disease has struck again. Where will it ever end?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. October 12, 1914

“I see you haven’t gotten one of those motorcars yet,” Irene notes, sipping her tea and looking across the table at Mycroft.

“While one may be more expedient, I do favour the old-fashioned methods.” He smiles. “And I doubt if Lorena would ever forgive me if I got rid of the horse.”

“You wouldn’t have to get rid of him, just put him on the train to Wyoming. She’d be only too glad to take care of him.”

“I’m sure she would. You’d want to be careful or she’ll set up a ranch and never come back.”

His words hit a little closer to home than he doubtless intended. All of Lorena’s letters have the same wonder and awe in them, even when she recounts some macabre tale. If she did decide to try her hand at ranching, it would come as no surprise. “Did you ever worry that Sherlock would do that?”

Mycroft smiles ruefully. “Once or twice, but he’s always been far too restless to settle to something like that for long.” He finishes his slice of cake and washes it down with the last of his tea. “If you’re ready I’ll leave you home. Does Thursday suit you again?”

“Yes, I believe it does.”

* * *

 

Lorena flattens herself against a wall, chambering three more rounds in her revolver. A bullet clips the corner of her wall, one of the splinters slicing her cheek.

“Bastards.”

Another round of firing, but she holds her peace, settling her heart rate again. The gun smoke reaches her nose and she sucks in a breath. Christ, but you could get high on that stuff. The wooden wall is pitted and scarred, scorched and splintered by the bullets throwing dust in her face, It’s so long since she’s fired they might think that they’ve gotten her.

Idiots. Don’t they know who they’re dealing with?

The shooting stops at last, but she doesn’t hear any footsteps and nor does Alan shout or re-appear. It’s not too hopeful.

She takes off her hat and puts it on the barrel of her gun, poking it out past the corner.

A bullet rips through the crown and she peeks out, firing back in the direction from which it came. A muttered curse, and silence falls. ( _The silence of three in the afternoon_ , she thinks, _in a half-forgotten town with a detective and a marshal standing up to a gang of would-be bank robbers. It could have happened forty years ago and not a thing would be different_.)

Alan stands up from behind the water trough, brushing dust off his clothes. His badge glints in the light and he smiles at Lorena as she steps out from behind the wall.

“Good shot!” he shouts, laughing, eyes still twinkling from the fight. It’s moments like this that she half-thinks she could grow to love him.

“You didn’t do too bad yourself!” she calls back, grinning at him as she puts her hat back on. “Do you reckon you have enough cuffs?”

“Oh I doubt if they’ll put up too much of a fight. Better get the Doc. I think you got that last fella in the shoulder.”

* * *

 

John shakes the rain from his hair and brings the groceries into the kitchen. He puts them away carefully and brews coffee, humming to dispel the quietness of the house. It takes a while before he realises that the tune is one of Sherlock’s. Having brewed coffee, he takes it upstairs with the newspaper, expecting to find Sherlock dozing in bed, as he’s been for much of the last few days.

The bed is empty, covers rumpled. John sets down the coffee, swearing softly, and goes back downstairs. It was to be expected, really, that Sherlock would get bored of bed rest. John just thought that it would take another couple of days before that would happen, based on past experience of an ill Sherlock. Influenza has always managed to lay him low, every single time.

With the kitchen already ruled out of a search, the evident absence from the bedroom, and the low likelihood of him being in John’s room, the study is the obvious place to search. The study, too, proves Sherlock-less, leaving the back room and the front parlor. Of those two, the back room is far more likely. When John gets there, the fire has burned low in the grate, and Sherlock is lying slumped over on the sofa, grey curls visible even from the doorway. John sighs and crosses the room, shaking the detective awake.

“Back to bed for you,” he says, but Sherlock shakes his head, straightening.

“No,” he coughs. “I have to go to Michigan.”

 _What sort of fever dream is this?_ John wonders. _Michigan? We don’t know anyone in Michigan. Wyoming I could understand, even Washington. But Michigan?_

“What the hell are you talking about?” He presses his wrist to Sherlock’s forehead. It’s hardly a fool-proof method of temperature checking, but it feels about the same as it did earlier.

Sherlock swallows back another cough, pulling a telegram from inside his robe. “Suspicious lesions,” he whispers hoarsely, before clearing his throat and trying again, his voice clearer now. “Suspected foot and mouth. They need me to confirm.”

“They don’t need you to do anything. The Department people are perfectly capable without you, and you are in no fit state to be heading off to Michigan. You can’t even sit up without coughing your lungs up, never mind trying to keep food down or stay awake. You’ll end up with pneumonia and it’ll be the death of you. Back to bed.”

“They requested my presence.”

“I’ll send word back that you’re unfortunately unavailable.”

Sherlock watches him for another minute, face taut and red-rimmed eyes narrowed, before he relents. “All right.” He pushes himself up and totters out the door without another word.

To the backing noise of Sherlock clattering up the stairs, punctuated with the odd cough and even a sneeze, John returns to the kitchen and makes soup. By the time he gets back upstairs with that and the newspaper, Sherlock is asleep, back to the headboard, coffee sitting cold beside him. John eases him down so that’s he’s actually lying on the bed, then tugs the covers up to his chin and feels his forehead again, tuning out the rattle of his breath.

“I’m sure you’re fit to go to Michigan,” he murmurs, closing the door softly behind him as he leaves.


	2. October 15 and 16, 1914

Mycroft debates whether or not to tell Irene about the close shave that Lorena had three days ago. In the end, he decides against it. It would only worry her unnecessarily to know about it, and where would be the use in that?

He does, however, mention that she was quite instrumental in the arrest of several would-be bank robbers. If Lorena decides to mention the shooting that was involved in order to achieve that arrest, then that is completely at her own discretion.

“I’m sure she’ll mention it in her next letter,” Irene smiles, her eyes slightly misty. Mycroft deduces that she misses her daughter, though it’s not much more than a month since she last visited New York.

“Does she often write about her cases?”

“All of time, though she only gives me a brief summary of events. I believe she writes about them in more detail for Sherlock, but that’s right up his street.” And Irene sips at her tea.

“Speaking of Sherlock, John mentioned that he’s quite ill with influenza.” Mycroft isn’t certain whether he should be worried about his brother or not. Influenza can be serious enough, though John mainly remarked about how difficult it is to get him to rest.

“I doubt if it’s too serious. John mostly complained about his stubbornness the last time that I was talking to him.” She smiles slightly. “It’s good to see age hasn’t changed that about him.” Her good humour is reassuring, and Mycroft feels a little more content in himself.

“It’s a pity that age hasn’t changed it. He’d be far easier to deal with if he wasn’t so stubborn.”

For a long moment there is silence, until Irene sighs. “John mentioned, just in passing, that there’s a suspected foot and mouth case in Michigan. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

He nods. “It’s a little more than suspected. I’m awaiting confirmation this evening.”

“And if it’s confirmed, do you think it will be bad?” Her very voice is cagey on the subject. This is the first time he’s seen her truly unnerved in a long time.

He decides to try and cast the affair in as good a light as he can. “I think it will be too soon to tell. Hopefully they can contain it quickly. It should give Sherlock something to look into, once he’s back on his feet.”

* * *

 

“Where have you been the last few days?” Kitty asks, sitting down across from Lorena. She refrains from mentioning her distaste at Lorena’s boots being propped on the table, that being a losing battle.

“Out around the ranches performing autopsies on cattle carcasses,” Lorena answers without missing a beat, face expressionless as she takes a mouthful out of her whisky glass.

Kitty chuckles, her auburn hair shining like prairie fire so that Lorena has to swallow. “While I’m perfectly prepared to believe that, I know it’s not true. What were you really at?”

A grin splits Lorena’s face, eyes twinkling. “Working on my monograph. It’s pulling together quite nicely now, and frankly, it’s about time that there was something about Holmesian deduction in the public sphere.”

“And what did Sherlock say about that when you told him?”

“That ordinary people are too stupid to grasp the complexities of what he does, even if I can put it forward in a way that they understand.” She sounds startlingly like him as she says it, and smiles slightly at that realisation.

Kitty giggles, and tops up Lorena’s whisky. She only met Sherlock over the summer while he was looking into a forgery case that brought him out here, but that was enough to see what he’s like, the arrogantly brilliant veneer and the very real brilliance underneath it. “What are you moving onto when this one’s finished?”

“I’m thinking an analysis of the Johnson County War, and hoping that they don’t run me out over it.”

“Be careful with that one, won’t you? Tempers could flair.”

A flicker of a smirk crosses Lorena’s face. “I wish them well. I doubt if they’d realise what they’re dealing with.”

One of the boys from the post office hurries into the saloon, and Lorena groans internally. This is bound to mess up her comfortable evening. Telegrams can never mean anything good, though they can certainly be exciting. The boy stops at their table. “Telegram, Miss Vernet.”

She swings her legs down, and notes the relieved look on Kitty’s face. “Yes, all right. Hand it over.” He presses it into her proffered hand and she tears it open.

“Sam said to wait in case you want to reply to it.”

Her eyes scan the slip of paper.

FMD IN MICHIGAN STOP CONFIRMED STOP STAY VIGILANT FINAL STOP MH

She knocks back the last of her whisky in one go. “All right.” She shoves the slip into her pocket. “Sam will have a copy of it. Reply simply with always and sign it LV. Put it down on my tab.”

“Yes, Miss Vernet.” He bustles out, and she leans back in her chair. Kitty cocks an eyebrow.

“What was that all about?”

Lorena sighs. “Cattle plague in Michigan. Nothing too exciting.”

“Do you think it will come here?”

“I doubt it.” As she says the words, she’s not sure whether or not she believes them. Anything could happen with something like foot and mouth disease. She knows that well enough by now. In 1902, Sherlock spent weeks in what he referred to as the killing fields, investigating the cause of the outbreak. And he and John did it all over again in 1908. Her mother got sick when she heard that what she referred to as “that plague” was back again. The memories of it all flash before her now in an instant, John’s pale face as he explained that they were loading up to look into a difficult case, her mother bringing up her dinner when she found out what it was, the twitch of her hands as she explained the gravity of it all to a Lorena who – at sixteen – was still too young to quite grasp the enormity of it, but old enough to know that perhaps she didn’t want to. For years by then, she’d known about the time that her mother and Sherlock had adventured together. But it was only in 1908 with the outbreak that she heard the full story – Maine in ’84, the torture in the New Mexican cave, the outbreak of ’86 and the stressful terror that it caused for weeks, especially when Sherlock got shot. And of course, she’s studied each of te outbreaks extensively in the time since. It’s a whirl, a whizzing blur of data and recollections, but she manages to push it away and compartmentalise. It’s hardly going to be _that_ bad, after all.

Still. Mycroft thinks it could be bad enough for her to need to stay vigilant. And it isn’t often that Mycroft is wrong. Lorena rubs a hand over her forehead. “I need another drink.”

* * *

 

Confirmed. The word swims around John’s mind, and it’s all he can do not to collapse into his chair and just give up. Confirmed. Confirmed condemnation. Confirmed murder. Nothing good can come from this, just like nothing good has ever come from it in the past, but he’s beyond looking for any sign of hope. All that can be done is to go on.

Sherlock is asleep. He doesn’t know, and maybe he’s better off not knowing, but he’ll have to find out sometime. He’ll deduce it from John, and he’s probably known that this would happen ever since the telegram came in from Michigan. Yet, there’s no point in waking him just to confirm it in his mind too. Let him have this last respite before the trouble starts for him again.

It might be his last rest for some time.


	3. October 19-21, 1914

“I’m going to Indiana.”  The declaration leaves no room for questions. John sighs and rolls his eyes, not even looking up from his medical journal.

“All right.”

From the side of his eye, John sees Sherlock prop himself up on the sofa with his elbows and frown. “You’re not going to protest?”

“Nope.”

“Why?”

“It’s your own health. You can do what you want with it. And frankly life’s too short to argue with you.”

“Oh.” He flops back down, coughing when that puts too much sudden pressure on his lungs. “I’ll leave it two days.”

John smiles slightly, and decides against commenting. He’s been expecting this ever since word came about foot and mouth having spread to Indiana. As of this morning, there is a federal quarantine on two counties in that state, and two more in Michigan. It’s only a matter of time before it’s found somewhere else, so of course Sherlock will want to get in on it. Of course the powers that be will want Sherlock to get in on the action soon in an attempt to plot the spread and solve the question of what’s causing it this time. It makes John so angry that they use him and use him like this time and again with no regard for how it might affect him. They don’t have to listen to him groaning in his room when another memory of every time before hits. They don’t have to worry about him accidentally taking too much laudanum in attempt to get back to sleep. They didn’t have to sew him back together in ’86, or listen to him muttering and musing to himself in ’02 or have to wade through a mess of charts and papers in ’09 when he was putting together yet another monograph on the subject of being careful in the wake of ’08. They have no idea of what it’s like so _of course_ they have no regard for what it might do to him. And _of course_ Sherlock will set all of that aside in order to deal with it because it’s foot and mouth and after everything he feels compelled.

As John half-watches in case Sherlock rolls off the sofa in his sleep, he is so done with everything that he has half a mind to pack up and go to Mexico. At least there he can hide on the mess.

* * *

 

Two days later, Sherlock packs an overnight bag and leaves. His ‘flu is almost gone, with just a stubborn cough and a cramped shoulder lingering. John stays behind, determined to take the opportunity of peace in Bow Street to catch up on his reading.

The train journey to Indiana passes faster than Sherlock expected, largely due to the fact that he spends most of it lost in thought. One would have thought, he muses, that after everything he’s written on the subject of foot and mouth disease the Department would take heed of it. Only in September there had been a slight disease scare – largely kept quiet – which was later diagnosed as necrotic stomatitis. Granted, the symptoms are similar and he really should do an analysis of the two against each other. But still. What they thought was stomatitis was more than likely foot and mouth, only they were too blind to see it and too deeply in denial. They should have called him in then, but of course they left it. And now look at the mess.

He wouldn’t mind so much, really, only he published a monograph after the outbreak in San Pedro on the importance of the early recognition of symptoms. It was about the only thing that John would let him do while his shoulder was healing, and it was widely circulated at the time. He brought it back out in 1908 in an attempt to drive the point home, yet they still didn’t take it into consideration. And look at what’s happened now! Two counties in Michigan, two in Indiana, hundreds of cases and it’s only been known about for approximately a week. People can really be such fools sometimes.


	4. October 25, 1914

He should never have come to Indiana. The conclusion hits hard. It’s not that he has new fodder for nightmares – which he does but he’s certainly learned to deal with that over the last thirty years so the images of slaughter and destruction which he witnesses won’t disturb his sleep for long – it is instead that he simply isn’t fit for it. Sherlock’s never thought of himself as unfit for anything before, and the realisation is a shock in spite of its truthfulness. He suspects that it’s the fumigation he’s being constantly subjected to as part of the disinfectant measures that’s at fault. His cough has only gotten worse so that now his chest aches all of the time and he has to move carefully to avoid worsening it. Catching his breath is a whole other battle.

He’s so tired, physically and mentally drained. His arms and legs ache, muscles and joints alike. It’s exhausting, and yet he can’t rest. There’s an itch in his bones for adventure so that he’s hardly settled to one thing when his mind insists that he move onto something else, some other avenue of thought and investigation, though there’s only so much that he can investigate here without going to Michigan. And the idea of going to Michigan makes him dizzy so that he has to sit down or risk falling down. John was right. He isn’t recovered enough to be dealing with something like this. Of course, John didn’t say quite as much as that, but it was there in his frown, in the strain of his jaw and his resolutely not saying anything about it.

There’s nothing for him to do here on the farms, not now. After a last round of fumigation and disinfection, he gathers his things and heads to town. First stop is the post office. It’s Lorena’s birthday, and even though he knows that she’s in Colorado investigating a murder, he sends a wire to Breckenridge wishing her a good day. She’ll get it when the case is finished and it will make her happy. Then she’ll wire him back berating him for not resting when he clearly isn’t recovered. Her similarity to Irene makes him smile.

Age has made him sentimental. It’s amusing, an unexpected twist of fate. (Not that he believes in fate, but he does enjoy the expression.) There is every chance that Irene is at fault. She changed him without either of them realising it, made him gentler and easier to deal with. He knows this as well as John does, heard it several times off his mother, too, in later years. His mother liked Irene, and adored Lorena, considering both of them a good influence on him. In fact she counted them both as part of the family, the daughter and granddaughter that she never had. If Sherlock’s being honest with himself, he can’t blame her for thinking that way. Lorena has always been special to him, and she’s cracked Mycroft’s façade. That alone deserves some merit.

It’s a while since he’s seen Lorena, though she writes regularly. She always mentions her cases and her analysis of them, and her adventures around the range, and her researches. They’re always enjoyable letters. And when she’s going away from Breckenridge she always sends a telegram to Irene so that they’ll know. Irene herself calls around regularly for coffee, and in some ways they could still be back in San Pedro, trading stories in the Comique, though it’s more than twenty-five years since the Comique closed down, and their conversations lack the faux-flirtatious edge that they had back then. They’re friends now, and Sherlock finds as he looks out of the post office into the street, a shiver of cold running through him, that he really doesn’t mind that. Irene is, as it turns out, a rather good friend to have. Even if she’ll agree with John that he really should be resting.

For all Lorena, like Irene, will berate him for not being more careful, she’ll be curious to hear what the situation is like on the ground. Perhaps he should compose a letter for her on the train journey home. She’ll enjoy it.


	5. October 26, 1914

It’s the afternoon when Sherlock arrives back in New York. The city is damp and dreary, the smog catching in his throat so that he retches there on the platform, almost bringing up the one coffee which he’d forced himself to drink. His head pounds with pain and he wraps his overcoat closer around himself. It’s really far too cold.

He’s aware, as he hails a cab and directs the driver to Bow Street, that he is feverish. The window is cool against his cheek and his eyes drift closed as he shivers in the seat. Home, and bed, and John making soup while planning the lecture which he’ll give when this sickness has passed. That’s all Sherlock wants now.

Damn, but he’s tired.

The cab jolts to a stop and Sherlock jumps, eyes snapping open. He coughs hard, and this time he thinks that there might be blood on his lips when he steps out of the cab, pulling his valise out behind him. The world sways and he stumbles, catching himself on a streetlamp as he starts coughing again. And coughs. And coughs. Spots dance in front of his eyes and he leans heavily against the streetlamp, coughing until he retches. The coffee comes up and splatters the sidewalk leaving a bitterly acidic taste in his mouth. His stomach heaves even though there’s nothing left in it, and his heart races. He stays there, gripping the lamp, not noticing the passers-by, until he’s composed himself and caught his breath. Then he straightens up, brushes down his coat, takes the handle of his valise and walks into number twelve.

Maybe soup is a bad idea.

* * *

 

It’s a crash from upstairs which wakes John from his doze on the couch. He sits up, newspaper falling from his chest, and strains to listen. All he hears is ragged breathing, and he feels a check at his heart. Christ. Sherlock.

He jumps off the couch so fast that his leg buckles under him, but he forces his way into the hall anyway. Sherlock is sprawled at the top of the stairs, his valise dumped by the front door. John takes the stairs two at a time, and kneels beside him, rolling him over onto his back. His breathing is harsh still, chest heaving. John presses his fingers to the carotid pulse, which is far too fast for his liking and then puts his wrist to Sherlock’s forehead. A fever, and a high one at that. What’s he done to himself now?

He shakes him lightly. “Sherlock. Wake up.” A gasp is the only response that he can elicit, followed by a series of whimpering shivers. “Ssshh. It’s all right. It’s all right.” John murmurs it over and over again until he can almost believe it. Perhaps he would believe it, if it weren’t for the bluish tinge to Sherlock’s lips. The shivers pass and he props Sherlock against the wall before straightening himself up and racing back down the stairs, into the back room, over to the liquor cabinet and grabbing a bottle of brandy. The first swig he takes for himself, and it clears his head enough that he can start computing symptoms. Temperature. Rapid pulse. Strained breathing. Fever. Clammy skin. Bluish lips. If that fool’s gone and given himself pneumonia John will kill him.

He goes back upstairs with a glass of brandy to find Sherlock still propped against the wall. The first sip of brandy sets his eyelids quivering, and the second sip makes him groan.

“John.”

“Sshh. I’m right here. You fainted, you clot.”

Those eyes flicker open, the fever shining bright from their bloodshot depths. The relief leaves John weak, even when Sherlock frowns. “What –“

“No questions. You are going to bed and you are staying there, all right?”

Sherlock nods, still dazed and woozy looking and John briefly feels sympathetic but clamps down on it. It’s his own fault that he’s here now in this mess. With a sigh, John heaves him to his feet. Sherlock groans and coughs. It’s a weak, gasping effort. Again there is a check at John’s heart as he half-carries him to his room. When Sherlock is settled in bed, John goes to his own room and un-earths his bag of medical instruments.

“Everything hurts,” Sherlock whispers when he gets back to him, propped up with pillows to make it easier to breath. “Shoulder, hip, knee, chest.”

“What part of your chest?” John asks, rubbing his hand over the diaphragm of the stethoscope’s chest piece to warm it a little before opening Sherlock’s shirt.

“Left side, about here.” He gestures and John nods.

* * *

 

“I think it’s pneumonia,” John says eventually, snapping his medical case shut. Sherlock sighs, closing his eyes and sinking into the pillows, grimacing when that temporarily exacerbates the pain in his chest.

“You suspected that an hour ago when you started this examination. You’re only confirming it now.” His voice is groggy, and so hoarse that it’s little more than a whisper.

“You knew it too, didn’t you?”

“I thought as much. It’s why I came back. Would have come back sooner if I’d realised it in time.” The last word breaks off in another cough which rattles his thin frame, leaving him wheezing as he tries to catch his breath. “Oh, Christ.”

Flecks of blood coat his lips. John carefully dabs them away, eyes burning at what it means, before speaking again. “So what do you want to do?”

“Let it run its course.” His voice whistles as he speaks. “The restless stage passed in Indiana. I’m going to die anyway. There’s no point in prolonging it.”

John is tempted to argue, oh so tempted. He’s tempted to point out the statistics, the remedies that he can try, but there is no need for that.  Sherlock’s right, much and all as it hurts to admit that. He can’t be saved, it’s too advanced and his chances wouldn’t be high even if it wasn’t. Any treatment now would just leave him lingering, maybe for weeks until the end, suffering through it the whole time. If John were in the same position, he knows he’d likely make the same choice. “All right.” He murmurs around the lump in his throat. “Will you at least allow laudanum? Or morphine?”

And in spite of the gravity of the situation, Sherlock smiles. It’s the first smile that John has seen from him in weeks, and it hurts knowing that it could be the last. “Of course I will. It’s only right that I be drugged up at my death.” _My death._ The very words cut John like a knife. “Telephone Mycroft and Irene in the morning, will you? I want to see them.”

“And what about Lorena?”

“Irene will send word to her.”

* * *

 

This first night seems to drag on for an eternity. John doesn’t sleep, instead sits by Sherlock’s bedside, unable to bring himself to go to bed, and as well for it. Somewhere in the late hours, when the city outside is dark, Sherlock’s fever spikes. He whimpers and moans through the delirium, body wracked by fits of shivers. And all John can do is bathe him with tepid water – a cloth on his forehead, another at his throat,  another passed over his chest in gentle, repetitive motions, trying to cool him any little bit while John himself tries to keep his tears at bay.

A part of him thinks that maybe he should have argued, should have tried to intervene and fought to save Sherlock’s life. Instead all he can do is watch over his best friend in his last days while his body slowly weakens and gives up on him. Watch as he fights to breathe through the coughs that sound as though they’ll tear his frail body apart. Watch as he opens his still-dreaming eyes and holds conversations with people who are long dead – apologises to Greg Lestrade for not being able to save his life, asks for his mother to make the pain go away, asks Mrs Hudson when John will be back, not seeing that John is sitting beside him the whole time. And it’ that grotesque moment of blindness that makes John’s tears spill over and trickle down his cheeks, falling on Sherlock’s face – though he doesn’t feel them – and leaving small damp circles on the pillow under his head.

It’s still early in the morning when the fever breaks, allowing Sherlock to slip into a reasonably peaceful sleep, though John still stays by his side, head now sharing his pillow. The fever may be gone for now, but it will be back later, when the infection invades another lobe of one of his lungs.

John has tended to patients dying of pneumonia before, old and young alike. he understands the cyclical nature of the disease, how a prognosis can look so hopeful and then everything falls to pieces.

And he has never felt so helpless.


	6. October 27, 1914

When Irene gets the call the next morning that Sherlock has pneumonia, she first curses him for letting himself get it. Then when John adds that he’s refusing any attempt at treatment, she curses Sherlock again before simply saying, “I’m on my way” and putting down the phone.

So it’s come to this. For a long moment – that stretches into ten minutes – she can’t bring herself to move from that spot. Pneumonia. Sherlock has pneumonia. Sherlock has pneumonia and he’s _dying_ from it because he won’t let John be a doctor and treat him. And he’s asking for her. At any other time that thought would make her smile, but not now. Not when he’s actually dying.

The shock gives way to stinging tears, irrational now. He’s dying, yes, but not yet dead. It is not the time for tears, and perhaps it won’t be. Perhaps she can convince him to have some sense and let John help him. Unlikely though that is, she draws strength from the thought and wipes away the tears, taking a moment to compose herself, pick up her purse and walk out the door.

Mycroft is already at Bow Street when she arrives, his cab waiting outside the door for him – she’d recognise it anywhere. Of course he’s here now, it’s his brother. She might be aching inside thanks to her long history with him, but how must Mycroft feel, knowing that his little brother whom he’s done so much for is dying? Surely, under his façade, it’s tearing him apart.

She’s hardly knocked on the door – having realised that she left her key at home - when John lets her in, making her suspect that he’s been waiting by the door for her, giving the brothers space to talk. He leads her into the kitchen and makes coffee, sitting opposite her at the table. It could be any other time in the last thirty years that she’s paid a visit and Sherlock has been otherwise occupied, only John’s hair is snow white and there is no Mrs Hudson anymore.

“What exactly happened?” Irene asks, wrapping her hands around her cup of coffee to give them something to do.

John sighs, half-heartedly stirring his own coffee. “He sent word from Indiana that he was coming home. Didn’t say why. I found him collapsed at the top of the stairs. He hasn’t said how that happened, but I think climbing them put too much pressure on his lungs and he fainted. I got to wake him and got him to his room and diagnosed pneumonia.”

“Is he bad?”

“Bad enough.” His voice is quiet, and he won’t look at her, choosing instead to focus on the wall, lips twisting for a moment before he goes on. “The left lung is significantly worse than the right. There’s extensive crepitation, which means it’s been lingering a while. His temperature spiked last night and then broke this morning, but before Mycroft arrived it was rising again and there were more chills setting in. More than likely the pneumonia is invading another lobe.”

“How long do you think . . . “ She trails off, unable to bring herself to say the words. John knows what she means anyway, and shrugs.

“Who knows? A week, maybe a week and a half. A few days is more likely. It’s gotten a good grip of him already, and was probably creeping in even before he went to Indiana which will have shortened – Well. You know yourself.”

* * *

 

Shortly afterwards, Mycroft comes downstairs and takes his leave. He doesn’t say much, just that Sherlock is asleep after wearing himself out. The old masks that he has worn for years have slipped, and Irene can see his fear beneath them. For a moment, she is tempted to hug him, then the moment passes and she goes upstairs with John. He would never have accepted a hug anyway, would have berated her for sentimentality.

Sherlock really is asleep, arms limp by his side, head tilted back on his pillow, pale lips parted, pulse visibly throbbing in his throat. It catches Irene off guard because no matter how certain Mycroft seemed she’d been hoping that Sherlock was only pretending. But he doesn’t even stir when John checks him over, and the grim look on John’s face confirms that he is worse. She almost vomits.

John slips out of the room, and she sits on the edge of Sherlock’s bed, taking his hand in hers. Sitting with him while he sleeps doesn’t feel strange, though she’d expected it would. Then again, she’s had a lot of practice over the years.

“You’re a fool, Sherlock Holmes,” she whispers, without the venom behind those same words as there would have been years before. “An absolute fool, but I think maybe you’re right this time.” She leans in and presses her lips to his forehead. His skin is clammy, and warm. “I hate when you’re right about these things.”

Silence falls, aside from his rattling breath. Irene finds that she can’t take her eyes off his pale face, keeps searching for a shift that’ll show he’s soon going to wake. Instead, he whimpers in his sleep, and coughs, and she murmurs soothing words. It could be thirty years ago after getting him out of that cave, only his lips are tinged blue, and his hair is silver. She never thought she’d see him with silver hair.

And she never wanted to see him die.

* * *

 

She sits with him for a long time while he sleeps, stroking her fingers lightly through that silver hair. Every now and then a cough rips through him which such force that she thinks that this time, surely this time, he’ll wake. But he doesn’t wake and she is left there, watching as dribbles of blood wet his lips, and he lies there whimpering through the pain even as he sleeps.

(Is it sleep, she wonders, or is it unconsciousness?)

She dabs the blood away every time, trickles a little water into his mouth and grips his hand tighter. At some stage, though she’s not too sure when, she moves to sit on the edge of his bed instead of in the chair beside him, hugging him close through the shivers and the coughing fits. It is here that she is when he does finally wake, his tired eyes roving the room before settling on her, one lip twitching.

“How are you?” she asks softly, aware even as the question slips from her that it’s ridiculous and he would be right to say something cruel.

Instead he gives a chuckle that only hurts his chest and makes him gasp, eyes shining bright in his ashen face. “I’m dying,” he whispers in that terrible hoarse voice. “How are you?”

“Oh I’m fine.” And the smile that curves her lips makes her want to cry. He’s dying, dammit. Of course she isn’t fine and of course she has to lie about how she feels.

How she feels doesn’t matter. There’ll be time enough for that.

His eyes slip closed, fingers stroking over hers. “I’m sure.” He sighs, and she thinks he’s going to go back to sleep, until he asks, “Would you mind sitting behind me? It might . . . might make it a little easier to breathe.”

She nods. “Of course.” It takes a little shuffling, and she’s careful not to hurt him, but soon she is in behind him and he is lying back against her, head on her shoulder, curls brushing her chin. “That might help.”

“I hope so.”

For a long time, neither of them say anything. She wraps her arms tight around him, and he keeps his fingers intertwined with hers. They just stay there, breathing against each other, his breaths faster than hers. She can feel his ribs through his thin shirt, and a ridge of scar tissue on his left side, relic of the fight in which Lestrade was killed. The wound scored by the bullet got infected afterwards, dreadfully so. She wasn't there, but she's heard about it from Mycroft, who was. According to him, Sherlock was at death's door for days, with a fever through the roof, not knowing who or where he was. John had to open the wound again and remove some of the tissue to try and drain it. He pulled through it eventually, but it took a long time. Afterwards he came east with John to recuperate. She remembers well how weak he was even then.

“Did I ever thank you,” he murmurs, breaking into her reminiscence, “for saving me from that cave?”

He wants to talk about the cave now? Was the time for that not thirty years ago? Her stomach lurches when she realises that this is his way of putting everything in order before his death. “You didn’t have to,” she murmurs, eyes stinging. “You’ve saved me so many times in so many ways. And John too. You don’t have to thank us for saving you.” She wants to say _I never could have escaped from the Baron without your help_ or _There was no need for you to stay with me when I got sick in Mexico. I only slowed you down_ or _You thanked me more than enough when you treated Lorena as your own_. She wants to say all of these things, but her throat is too tight and the words don’t want to come.

He swallows and she looks down at his face, seeing his eyes slip closed. “But I never thanked you.” His voice is hardly a sigh.

“Not as such.”

She can feel him smile against her neck. “Then thank you, Miss Adler.”

It’s been years since anyone called her Miss Adler. And hearing the name in his voice makes her smile through her tears. “You’re welcome, Mister Holmes.”

* * *

 

After Sherlock falls asleep again, Irene leaves John – who, while she sat with Sherlock, took the opportunity to get some sleep - to hold the fort for the night, promising to come back in the morning. On the way home, she stops by the post office and sends a wire to Breckenridge, Wyoming. Lorena will still be making her way home from the case in Colorado, but she’ll get the telegram when she gets home, which should be tomorrow. It’s time for her to come home.


	7. October 28, 1914

It’s into the afternoon on the twenty-eighth of October when Lorena gets back to Breckenridge. There was no rush on her, so she let Brenn take it easy on the ride from Goodness. The cold doesn’t penetrate her heavy coat and there’s been fresh snowfall since she left so that around her the world is white. She soaks it all in before town and people can ruin her mood. People are fine so long as they’re not being obtuse, intentionally or otherwise. In fact, she’d go so far as to say she likes them, most of the time. But today she no more wants to deal with people than to ride a hundred and fifty miles to solve a case that she could have sorted by telegram. Though really, it had looked so promising when she left. On the whole, it’s an evening for hot coffee and reading chemistry books by the open fire, so she absorbs the beauty of the world while she has no other choice. Though, perhaps, she’ll have dinner at the restaurant with Alan and Kitty and they can all catch up on each other’s news of the last few days. That sounds like a plan.

The town is reasonably quiet – children all in school and miners out in the fields, ranchers busy dealing with their own business. Little has changed in the last forty years, she often thinks, or at least, little has changed out here. Breckenridge looks like it could have come out of one of John’s stories, only for the electricity and superior trains. It’s disconcerting to think like that, and yet it’s as true as anything.

She stables Brenn at the livery and shoulders her saddlebags. First thing first, a trip to the post office. Hopefully there won’t be anything too taxing and she can go home. A sleep would be lovely right about now. Maybe she’ll put that dinner off until tomorrow.

Sam greets her with a nod from behind the counter, a slightly downcast look in his eye that makes her wonder what’s happened over the last few days. Surely she hasn’t been out of town long enough for some catastrophe to strike. “Two letters, seven telegrams,” he says, reaching under the counter and coming up with a neat bundle. “Letters are at the bottom.”

“How’s the family?” she asks, deciding to pass no remarks on the tension in his shoulders or the careful way he’s watching her as she opens the top telegram.

“Oh, they’re all right,” he smiles. “Bonnie says you should call around for supper when you get a chance, and Terry’s gotten a job out at the FA, so we’re all happy enough.”

Lorena nods. “That’s good,” she murmurs, looking down at the telegram.

It’s from her mother, and it takes a few moments for it to make sense. Words and phrases jump out at her. Sherlock. Pneumonia. Come at once. The date says it arrived yesterday. A wave of nausea crashes in her stomach. Yesterday. Pneumonia. Come at once. If he wasn’t too bad, then those last three words wouldn’t be there, which means . . .

She looks up at Sam, feeling unsteady. “Tell Bonnie to hold supper. I have to go to New York.” Forcing the immediate worry down, she takes a moment to compartmentalise, watching the shifting expressions on Sam’s face – concern, and then resignation, because of course he’d already know the contents of the telegram. “I want you to send a wire, Sam.”

He pulls the pencil from behind his ear and sets it to a slip of paper, nodding. “Fire away.”

“To Irene Vernet, number twelve, Bow Street, New York. On my way. Signed L.”

“I’ll put it on your tab. Do what you gotta do.”

She smiles in spite of herself. Sam is always a lifesaver of sorts, has been since she’s known him. “Thanks, Sam.” Stuffing the remaining telegrams and letters into her pocket, she turns and walks out, saddlebags hung on her shoulders still.

Her chest is hollow. Empty. What to do, now that it’s come to this? Wait until tomorrow afternoon and catch the stage, which wouldn’t get her to Cheyenne for about two days at the speed it goes, or take Brenn and ride hell out of him to Cheyenne, then catch the train? The latter is the more expedient option, undoubtedly, which is all the more essential considering the final caveat of “Come at once.” The only problem, of course, is that Brenn is after carrying her a hundred and fifty miles, though the easy pace will have been in his favour. She could borrow a horse, but considering that the animal would be stabled in Cheyenne for an indefinite period of time, that may not be the wisest course of action.

It’s as easy as that really. She goes to the livery and looks over Brenn, feeling his legs for any excess heat or tenderness which would give away an injury. He’s sound, and it’s enough to make up her mind.

“Have him ready to go in an hour and a half,” she directs the hostler’s boy, pulling two dollars out of her pocket and handing them over to him.

“Yes, Miss Vernet.”

Next, the Marshal’s office. Alan is leaning back behind his desk when she walks in, and he raises an eyebrow in concern. He swings his legs down from the desk and leans across it, eyes flicking over every aspect of her appearance.

“What’s happened? I wasn’t expecting you to come by until later.”

More than ever, Lorena is grateful for Alan’s perceptiveness. “I have to go to New York. Sherlock, well,” she sighs, unable to bring herself to say the words because that would crystallise them, “I need to go to New York.”

Alan frowns slightly, and nods. “Yes, of course. Take all of the time you need. I’ll leave aside any interesting cases until you get back.”

“Thanks, Alan.” She turns to leave, but he stands and comes around the desk, enfolding her in a hug.

“It’ll be all right,” he murmurs, and she shakes her head against his chest, eyes stinging though she forces back the tears.

“No, it won’t.” Her voice is hoarse. “But I have to be there anyway.”

Within an hour and a half, having knocked back a whisky at the saloon, said farewell to Kitty and packed the essentials, Lorena is riding out of town with Brenn. It’s chaos, and she wants to vomit, but she has it to do, and so she’ll go through with it, riding all night if she has to. Brenn is none too happy, but he settles into a rhythm before long, and off they trek across country, Lorena’s mind a whirlwind of clinical facts and aching emotions. And there’s nothing which can be done for it but to ride.

* * *

 

Tiredness drags at Irene’s eyes, so she re-doubles her efforts against it. Someone has to stay awake with Sherlock to keep him propped up, and in case he wakes. And John needs to rest so it has to be her. Not that she minds, she just wishes that she didn’t have to see him like this, wishes that he wasn’t in such pain. The laudanum has helped him to sleep and for that she is terribly grateful.

She knows he won’t be able to hear her, not through the haze of drugs, but she talks anyway, to keep herself awake and drown out his rattling breath.

“I would have done anything for you,” she murmurs, one arm still wrapped around his waist, a hand carding through his curls. “I still would, you know. If you asked me to run away to Mexico with you in the morning I’d do it in a second.” She sighs. “Though I suppose that won’t be happening now anyway.” Her heart twists painfully at the truth of it, but she refuses to let her voice break. “I’d re-do those two years tearing the network apart. This time it would be easier with the Baron. I’d know you were coming for me. I think a part of me refused to stand up to him before because . . . well, because I supposed I’d deserved it. I’d put you and John in danger. You’ve never seen it that way, I know. But it’s true. I was leverage. I’ve always regretted that.

“I love you, Sherlock. I have for years, I’ve just never said it. I knew I needed you long before I knew I loved you. I went to Austin in the first place because New York felt so empty without you. You’d chide me for sentiment if you were awake. Maybe you’d be right. I mean, how can a city full of people be empty just because one person has gone away? But it was. Austin and everywhere beforehand was just a distraction. I couldn’t admit that you were the cause. It seemed so weak a thought. And yet it was true. I was ridiculous back then.” And she chuckles softly into the darkness of the room.

“But it was a long time before I knew I loved you. I think John realised even before I did. It was in the looks he’d give me while you were sick, after everything with Moran. I think some part of me must have known long before I knew that I knew. It doesn’t make any sense when you hear it said aloud in words. It was the night you spent mostly in the saloon with me after you condemned Al Marion’s cattle. You couldn’t sleep, so you kept drinking and playing cards until John managed to force you into going home and getting some rest. You were strung so tight and nobody else could see it. Just didn’t know what to look for, I suppose. And it just sort of hit me, as if realisations like that happen every day. Maybe they do for other people. It didn’t feel ground-breaking. It didn’t feel like a shock. It just felt as if a word I didn’t know I’d been reaching for suddenly fit.

“Sometimes, I think I should have told you. Back then when there might have been a chance for us. Then I remember that it would never have worked. We were always better as friends. Anything more and we would have torn each other apart. But we weren’t really friends either, were we? It was a fascination at first, then an obsession. And it seemed to by-pass friendship eventually but we were never lovers. Not in the traditional sense, at least. And nor were we friends, not entirely. We’ve always trusted each other, always gotten along. But John is your friend and I’m nameless. An uncertainty, maybe. I like that word, uncertainty. It expresses so much about us. Though maybe a distraction fits better. I was certainly a distraction. Then again, so were you. . .” She trails off, before another thought crosses her mind and she picks up again.

“Remember Austin in ’91? I’ve always wondered what you told John about those nights that you spent in my rooms. Surely he was looking for you. I’ve always presumed that he thought you were looking into the case, even though you didn’t need to. Not at that stage. Three wonderful nights. Those were some of the best nights I’ve ever had. I should have told you that sooner. Should have made a bigger deal of it instead of treating it so casually. Still, there was never hope for us. Not in that sense.”

And on she goes, talking until she’s hoarse and not even stopping then, nor when the tears spill down her cheeks against her will, though she knows he’s still breathing. She hears him every time that she pauses for breath and it spurs her on harder. She murmurs of love and reminisces and Lorena. That girl he and John alike treat as a daughter. And Irene prays that she’ll make it in time. And damn that infuriating stupid man. Why did he have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t he just let John help him, even if it’s hopeless and she’d likely make the same choice as he has, in his position? Why can’t he just live, dammit? And it’s tears of frustration by dawn, but that’s the man she fell in love with.

* * *

 

Several times through that night Sherlock surfaces towards consciousness without managing to break through. Irene’s voice is soothing, an anchor, and he wonders vaguely where John is, deciding eventually that she’s probably convinced him to get some sleep. She’s always been very persuasive.

He only manages to pick out some of the things she says, particular words and phrases filtering through the haze of drugs and pain. Lorena, dear little Lorena, not so little now. He’s always been so proud of her. He remembers a flash of teaching her the violin in between his cases and her time at school, her fingers always so careful as they held the bow. She was a good pupil, just easily distracted if he made the mistake of mentioning something else. Irene brings it all back now, reminding him of how Lorena used to argue with him about chemistry principles, and was correcting the books even before university. She could probably re-write the books now if she wanted, but academia could never be her life. She’s always craved adventure too much. And no matter how brilliant she is, they’d never want her for it anyway. Privately, he’s always thought that the academics were scared of her for her intelligence and her femininity alike. Idiots. They’re the ones who need to learn.

His chest constricts unbearably and a series of coughs rip through him, leaving him gasping for breath and the taste of blood on his lips. Irene shushes him gently, smoothing back his hair and pressing a glass to his lips. The water soothes his throat and he recognises the bitter taste of laudanum.

He opens his eyes slowly, warily. The room is dark, lit only by a lamp on the bedside table. And Irene’s face is creased with worry, but she cracks a slight smile for him anyway.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and as he slips away again he finds himself wondering what he is thanking her for. The laudanum? The smile? The stories? Simply being here now? He isn’t sure, but no matter, he reasons. She’ll know what he means. She always does.


	8. October 29, 1914

That one is a cold night. The snow lies light on the ground, the world is bright. There are no clouds and the moon seems to have its own glow so that everywhere is almost as bright as if it were daylight. The cold bites through Lorena’s coat, but it is a dry cold and thus bearable. Brenn ploughs on through the snow without complaint, used by now to such night rides.

It is early in the afternoon by the time that they arrive in Cheyenne. The train has already departed, as Lorena knew it would have. She stables Brenn, leaving careful instructions about minding her saddle while she is away. If the hostler objects to taking orders off a woman wearing trousers, he doesn’t let that get in the way of conducting business. It is the other people in the town that she has to beware of – men who quirk their lips at her fashion choices and ladies who make moues of disgust. Their opinions do not matter, what matters is that she is here, and she has to stay here and bear them all until morning.

The train won’t leave again until half two tomorrow morning. Lorena buys her ticket now before she ever goes near the hotel or the post office, and stows it carefully in her billfold. A one way ticket which will get her to Chicago in the space of thirty hours. Thirty hours seems like a lifetime now. Anything can change over that space of time.

Over at the hotel, she exchanges her trousers for a simple dress, plain and comfortable, before making her way to the post office. The telegram that she sends is addressed to her mother. She’ll be staying with Sherlock and John these days anyway, so Lorena directs the telegram to there, confirming her safe arrival in Cheyenne and plan to take the train to Chicago. At the end, she hesitates, briefly, before enquiring after Sherlock.

Only when the reply comes, and she can assure herself that he’s still hanging on, still reasonably all right, does she allow herself to sleep. It is the last sleep she gets for some time.      

* * *

 

Sherlock is awake when Mycroft comes to visit, propped up in bed writing on a sheet of paper. Though he’s been expecting it, has thoroughly prepared himself for it, Mycroft is briefly taken aback by his brother’s appearance. He wears the drawn look of someone suffering from a serious illness – to be expected, of course - face pale with beads of sweat on his forehead and shadows under his sunken eyes.

“I’m writing a letter to Lorena,” and his voice is hoarse from all of the coughing over the last few days, vocal cords raw. “In case, well . . . I trust you’ll give it to her.”

“Of course I will.”

Sherlock signs the bottom of the page with only half of his usual flourish and then folds it over. Mycroft carefully takes it from his grip and stows it in his pocket. Sherlock sinks back into the pillows, eyes slipping closed.

“It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. Dying. Doesn’t hurt as much. It’s almost a relief.” His face twists into a grimace as a coughing fit overtakes him. One hand grips the left side of his chest tight, knuckles white. Mycroft takes the glass of water from the bedside cabinet and presses it to his lips, the rim stained red from the blood that Sherlock keeps coughing up, as is the handkerchief which also sits on the cabinet. Sipping at the water eases the fit somewhat and soon he settles again. “I’m so tired.” His voice is faint, and Mycroft’s heart twists.

“It’s all right. Rest if you want to. Sleep is the best thing for you now.” As he says it, he half-expects a snarled reply of _I’ll sleep enough when I’m dead_. To his disappointment, it doesn’t come. He’d feel a little better if it had.

One eye opens, just a crack, enough to see a slice of grey iris under the lid. “I’m sorry.” Sorry for dying, Mycroft supposes. Sorry for being a stubborn fool. Sorry for causing so much trouble all of his life. Sorry for being so tired.

Mycroft smiles, and wishes that doing so didn’t feel like stabbing himself repeatedly in the chest. “I know you are. Now go to sleep. It’ll help.”

The lone open eye closes, and he groans, choking back another cough. “Nothing can help me now. Only laudanum and morphine.”

His voice is so faint that Mycroft winces, but the words are true nonetheless. Sherlock slides his hand into his and squeezes. There is nothing that Mycroft can say, no words that come to mind. What _can_ he say anyway? He’s had sixty years with a brother whom he never expected would survive childhood, never mind grow up and have his hair turn grey. All of the necessary words have already been used over all of those other nights when he thought that his brother wouldn’t survive only for him to pull through in the end. There’s no pulling through now, so perhaps it’s only right that there are no words either. He won’t be here for the end, when the end comes. But there’s no need for him to be, really. It’s more than enough to see Sherlock’s suffering now without adding that to it.

He sits there until the harsh breathing eases and the grip on his fingers slackens, and sits longer, simply watching, imprinting this – the last time that he’ll see his baby brother alive - in his mind though he doubts that he could forget it even if he tried to. The letter is safe in his pocket as he brushes the silver curls back from his brother’s eyes.

“Sleep well,” he whispers, before gently laying down the thin hand that he’s holding, wiping the traces of tears from his eyes, and walking out.

* * *

 

There’s a daguerreotype on the mantelpiece. Irene estimates based on Sherlock’s hairstyle that it’s from around 1887. He is tall and proud in it, his sharp eyes piercing her even now, looking so young. It takes her breath away, and the memories come rushing back, cutting her to the quick.

Upstairs he is dying and yet down here, in this photograph, he is preserved as the young man that he once was. Even the way he stands is arrogant, with that coat draped like a cape. She remembers when it was taken. The snow of the bad winter was finally thawed to melt water, and he solved an intricate case for a travelling photographer. As the result of that, he earned himself several portraits for free. One has him, John, Irene and Lestrade, forever memorialised. (They’d asked Mrs Hudson to join them too, but she’d politely declined. So they’d given her the portrait and she’d kept it until the end. Lorena has it now, with her in Wyoming.) Another is just him and Irene, and one with just him and John, and there’s one of him and Mycroft with the final one being this – Sherlock standing alone, his face framed forever by his dark curls, his neat waistcoat and broadcloth suit highlighting the leanness of his body, the coat adding a touch of drama. His hat is pushed back so that it doesn’t shade his eyes, serving instead as a dark halo. His legs looking so long in those trousers.

Irene would have taken him then and there if he’d wanted, no questions asked. And even the daguerreotype, recording the event for posterity, takes her breath away. If she could go back now, she’d hug him, just hug him, and savour the fact of being in a time when it felt as if they would all go on forever.

* * *

 

How many more nights will there be like this? How many more nights could possibly be left like this? The end is moving in fast, a train speeding towards them down the tracks. And for all of his knowledge John is powerless to stop it.

Sherlock’s body is limp against him, head fallen back against his shoulder and breath rattling. There was too much morphine in that last dose. Not enough to kill him, not yet, but enough that there is no fear of him waking tonight unless he has a coughing fit bad enough to drag him into consciousness. A part of John thinks that perhaps it would have been kinder to have given him an even larger dose, and see him from this life now, instead of letting him suffer a little longer. Yet, had he done that, he doubts if he could ever have forgiven himself.

Where did the time go? Only yesterday they were two young men in a saloon in Prescott in 1879, meeting for the first time. Sherlock – who was only two years older than Lorena is now, which is hard to believe – dazzled before him with the sharpness of his wit and the quickness of his mind, the curls framing his face still black instead of almost-white. And John was impressed by the lengths to which he would go in order to earn back his watch.

The ache to be back then is almost enough to kill John. The west was still young and free, and so were they. It burns deep in his chest. They’d saddle up at the break of dawn and ride into the wind, searching for cases wherever their horses would take them. Sherlock wouldn’t be dying now, even if he did wear himself out. The range would spread out before them, fenceless, and with the sun on their backs they’d ride like knights in leather armour, or avenging angels. Their lives stretching before them into the unknown, always onwards and onwards, more to see, to do, to know, people and places both.

Now there are towns and cities dotting those same ranges that they knew so well, could navigate by the stars and the rivers and their horses. Fences subdivide the land. The ranches are more intensive. The railway can take you almost anywhere. And there is even the occasional oil well, a thing unheard of in their time. Lorena may have found a patch of that great west for her own, but it’s not the same as it once was. Too many people have moved in, have been born and gone on to die out there. There’s law like there never was before (and what would Greg Lestrade think, were he here to see it?), civilisation paving the way for a different type of man – and woman – than what they knew. And yet, what John wouldn’t give now to head west with a good horse and Sherlock by his side, to see it all once more. To re-capture their glory days down those old trails, he supposes.

It wasn’t all easy. It wasn’t all glorious. There were sacrifices made everywhere – cattle, cases, lives. Time. There were nights – and days – when it looked like one or the other of them wouldn’t come home. And that’s leaving aside those dreadful two years. Two years which marked both of them and brought Irene deeper into the fold so that she became family to them both. John wouldn’t change it for the world.

They are changed men in a lot of ways thanks to what happened out there. For one thing they’ve lived longer than either of them really expected to. They’ve had their battles, and taken the good with the bad, and even Sherlock has mellowed somewhat. But they’re not really that different from the young men who met over a card game thirty-five years ago, are still recognisably themselves. Sherlock’s brilliance still radiates from him even now while he is dying. That sharpness which both drew people to him and cast them away still lingers.

“You are the bravest and kindest and wisest man I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing,” John whispers, laying his head against Sherlock’s. “Hell, you’re my best friend, Sherlock, and that’s no joke. I’m going to miss you so much. There may have been times when I wanted to kill you, and times where I was sure you’d lead me to a premature grave, but I wouldn’t change a moment of what we had. We helped so many people, and it’s no exaggeration to say that we saved each other. I don’t know what I’d have done if I’d never met you. Maybe I would have gone into private practice, and maybe I would have kept gambling until I got killed, but my life would be the lesser if it had not had you in it. You’re my brother in every way but blood, and I’m going to miss you like a brother. I’ll miss your three in the morning violin, your rushing into my room to wake me for some promising case, your kitchen experiments and explosions. I’m going to miss your kindness, and your gentleness. And you are gentle, no matter how you may have tried to hide it through the years. I’m going to miss it all.”

This night pulls them ever closer to the end. John feels it in the rise and fall of Sherlock’s chest beneath his hand, the brush of breath on his bare skin, the tickle of the curls beneath his ear. And how he longs to saddle up once more, to go back to where they once rode, but that is all past for him now. Because really, he couldn’t do it without Sherlock.

He just fears that he’s going to have to.


	9. October 30, 1914

It is only when she is on the train that Lorena reads through the two letters and the remaining telegrams. Three of the telegrams are wishing her a happy birthday, one each from Sherlock (there’s a pang in her chest at the sight of his name), John and her mother. There’s a telegram from a widow in Cheyenne looking for her to look into a possible art forgery, another from a marshal in Kaycee who wants her to help him track an outlaw gang through the Hole-In-The-Wall Country and another from a detective in Cody trying to resolve a possible murder. One of the letters is from her mother, carrying all of the latest news including the foot and mouth and Sherlock’s dose of the flu from early in the month. Mostly it rants about what a fool Sherlock is not to take better care of himself, leading Lorena to suspect that she’d been talking to John shortly before she wrote it. Reading it now makes Lorena’s eyes burn with tears, seeing as how she knows what happened after the writing of the letter.

John’s letter is in much the same vein as her mother’s, complaining about Sherlock’s foolishness and Mycroft’s skirting around. However, it also inadvertently explains how Sherlock’s pneumonia came to be, with a paragraph noting his intention to leave for Indiana at the first opportunity. Lorena presumes that he went to Indiana in the end, and it happened there. From what she’s heard, he was always too stubborn for his own good, and now it might just be the death of him.

She re-reads the letter from her mother again, trying to glean some comfort from it. _Come and visit us soon_ , her mother has written. _We all miss you and maybe you can join Sherlock looking into this whole cattle business so that it can be wrapped up as soon as possible. It’ll stop you getting bored at the very least._

“I don’t suppose you intended for me to visit under such circumstances as these, did you?” Lorena murmurs, and looks out the window to hide the tears glistening in her eyes. _How is he now?_ She asks herself. _Is he still fighting, or am I already too late?_

* * *

 

_He is warm, and comfortable. Perfectly content. There is no pain, though he suspects that perhaps there should be. His mother’s voice murmurs soothing words in his ear, gentle and calm, her fingers carding through his curls. The bed is far too big, cocooning him, as does his mother, one of her arms around him, keeping him close to her chest. Safe. He has never felt so safe before._

_His father is here too. Always quieter, more reserved. He senses him more than hears him, though he is murmuring too, as careful and gentle as his mother, parents’ hands intertwined. And here he can rest._

* * *

 

_He is seven. He is certain of it with the self-possessed certainty of a seven year old. If he were younger, Mycroft would bounce him on his knee as they talk, but not anymore. Now Mycroft sits by the fire reading, not taking his eyes off the book to look at him, sitting at his big brother’s feet._

_“Father will be back when he can come back, Sherlock. You have to be patient. There’s a war on and he has to fight.”_

_Sherlock knows what war is. He’s read about it in some of the books in Papa’s study. He liked the paintings of the horses, but didn’t like the figures of people killed. It was too high. How could that many people get killed in a fight? But Mycroft said it was bigger and worse than just any fight. “Will he die?” His voice doesn’t tremble, and he is oddly proud of that._

_Mycroft looks up at last, studying him carefully. Sherlock can feel his eyes take in every feature and note, every misplaced hair which might betray his worries to his brother. A sigh, and then, “he might.”_

* * *

 

_Two years later, Mycroft joins their father at war. When they eventually come home, neither of them smile as much as they used to. And both wear battle scars beneath their armour._

* * *

 

_“Come on, Sherlock. Wake up.” A hand slaps his face, and the voice is so insistent. He would open his eyes, he really would, but they’re so heavy, lead weights pressing down on them._

_The voices are muffled, distorted, as though he is hearing them through water. “What’s he taken?”_

_“Laudanum. A lot of it. Get the doctor.” Boots on a hardwood floor, hurrying away. It pounds in his head. A hand shakes his shoulder. “Open your eyes if you can hear me, Sherlock. Can you do that for me? Please?” He recognises that voice. It’s the Marshal, the one with the funny name. What was it? Lestrudel? LeDoux? Something French, he thinks, but it wasn’t LeDoux._

_“What is it, Lestrade?” Lestrade, that’s it! That’s his name! Ha!_

_“A laudanum overdose, doc. I found him like this about ten minutes ago. Do you think you can do anything for him?”_

_Fingers pressing into his throat, fluttering at his wrist. His chest is cold, though he’s wearing a shirt. A thumb forcing his eyelid open. The light is agony, his sight is blurred. “Young men these days have no sense. I’ll see what I can do, Lestrade, but I make no promises. He seems to have ingested quite an amount. His pulse is very weak. Is there anyone who can stay with him?”_

_“He never mentioned any family, but I’ll stay. Gregson can manage without me for a little while.”_

* * *

 

The light sears his eyes, blinding him so that he cannot see. He is not alone, he knows that much, and yet the pain is overwhelming. The whole left side of his chest is tight and burning so that even breathing is agony. He tries to rub it out, tries to ease the tension, but he hasn’t the strength to move his arm. Everything is sluggish, and the pain has spread to his right side. It’s the lungs, he knows that much, he’s been through this before, but his mind won’t work, won’t tell him what’s wrong. Has he been shot? Where has he been where he could get shot? Was there a case, a murdering madman trying to kill him? John wouldn’t let that happen.

There is a pinch in the crook of his elbow, as of a needle sliding in, and for just a moment his vision clears. Irene is behind him, he knows the feel of her hands, propping him up and keeping him close. And Lestrade is beside him, gripping his fingers with one hand and a hypodermic with the other. But John. Where’s John? Surely he hasn’t gotten killed? But if he hasn’t, why isn’t he here now? He’s always here.

His heart feels as if it’s going to burst through his chest. Then his vision clouds again and he slips beneath the morphine tide.

* * *

 

_John’s horse is flagging, unable to keep up with Redbeard. Sherlock’s heart pounds as he looks up. John ducks as a bullet flies over his head, and shakes the horse on. The next bullet takes the horse from under him. John rolls as he hits the ground, and Sherlock swings Redbeard around, pulling him up behind him._

_“Christ, Sherlock,” John pants, wrapping his arms around Sherlock’s waist._

_Sherlock doesn’t say anything, just squeezes Redbeard tighter with his legs and urges him onwards. The gloves are all that save his hands from getting cut with the reins. It won’t take too much longer for them to get to the canyons. There they can hole up and make a stand. Lestrade will already be on their trail anyway._

* * *

 

_Mrs Hudson sets a cup of coffee down in front of him and slides into her own chair. John is down at the saloon, so it’s only the two of them left in the house._

_He still feels a little shaken after the ride back here. It came a little close for comfort this time, and the post-case high doesn’t have a chance to move in. Mrs Hudson stays quiet and regards him carefully._

_“We managed to circle back and pick up John’s saddle,” Sherlock murmurs, looking into his own cup. “It’ll save him buying a new one.”_

_“That’s good.” Her voice is quiet and he doesn’t look at her, waiting for the moment that she’s going to lecture him about being more careful. He can’t blame her for it, not this time. He doesn’t much care about himself, has never expected to live a long life so the idea of getting killed out here doesn’t bother him much. But John. If John died because of a mistake of his he could never forgive himself. “I’m sure that whatever went wrong wasn’t your fault.” Her voice is kind, but still he doesn’t look up at her._

_“I should have realised that the gang wasn’t all there.”_

_“You couldn’t have known that there were more waiting than what you’d already found. From what the Marshal said you’d already brought in ten men. Nobody could have expected any more, not even you.”_

_“It’s my job to realise these things. I should have figured it out.”_

_“But you didn’t. And you almost got yourself and John killed, but you managed to get yourselves out anyway. It was the best that you could have done under the circumstances.”_

_“I should have done more. Next time I will do more. I’ll be better.” He looks up at her, eyes stinging for the first time in years. “I promise I will.” He’s almost ready to move against Moriarty as it is._

* * *

 

_Irene is pressed beside him in the coach, pale and nervous, eyes betraying the ordeal that she’s been through at the hands of that . . . beast is too good of a word for him. She’s hardly spoken a word since he managed to get her out of there, hardly even seem to recognise him. She is a far cry from the girl who once raced him through the streets of New York._

_He’d kill Jim Moriarty if the man hadn’t already taken care of that himself. He’d tear him apart for what he caused to happen to her._

_The coach stops. What’s that driver playing at? A knock at the door, Irene shivering against him as the door opens. He recognises the scar across the bridge of the nose of the man who looks in. One of the Baron’s men. His gun is in his hand in an instant and he fires one shot, two, three, his other hand already opening the other door._

_He tumbles out, Irene clinging tight to his clothes and he can’t blame her. “Up!” he orders. “Come on, now. Run!”_

* * *

 

_“Mama says you’re very ill and need to rest.” Lorena’s voice is very small, her tiny body curled up in the bed beside him. “She says that you got hurt when you were trying to save the Marshal.”_

_“I did. And I was very ill.” He opens his eyes against the tiredness, looking down at her lying beside him. Her face is pale, eyes wide and worried and it hurts somewhere inside of him, a hurt that isn’t connected to his wound. “But I’ll be all right now. John is an excellent doctor.”_

_She nods, still clearly worried. “So you’re not going to die?”_

_He chuckles, and that does hurt his wound. “No. I’ll live this time.” He decides against telling her that he very nearly did die from the infection, before Mycroft bought the tickets for them to come east and recuperate. She’s only six. She doesn’t need to worry about these things._

_She cuddles in against him, hiding her face in his chest. He strokes her hair gently. “That’s good,” she murmurs. “I don’t want you to die.”_


	10. October 31, 1914

It’s a bright morning in Chicago, albeit windy. Lorena brushes her hair out of her eyes and carries her bags straight to the ticket office. The Twentieth Century Special to New York leaves in about six hours, but she takes the opportunity to buy her ticket now. It’s expensive, and she doesn’t even get a bed on the train, but right now speed is more important than cost. And the Special will have her in New York by morning. It’s the fastest she can get there.

This is the first time in days that she’s hungry. She ate on the train, true enough, but it was an effort to do so. Now, however, she finds that she would really love some food, and perhaps could keep it down too. And so she decides to go in search of some.

First, though, she hunts down a post office and wires Mycroft with news of her arrival. He responds within minutes, saying that he’ll arrange for her to be collected from the station in the morning. Then she wires her mother with the plan. The reply comes quick enough, from John, who acknowledges it and adds that Sherlock is low. Lorena refuses to dwell on that for now, quells the nauseating worry in her stomach.

She’ll get there in time. Of course she will. The Century is the fastest train there is. It’ll get her there. She’ll tell him what a fool he is, and say that she’ll hate him forever for letting this happen though they’ll both know that she won’t really mean it, and she’ll be there, whatever way the outcome goes.

She weaves her way away from the post office and finds a little restaurant. It’s small, and far warmer than the day outside is. She settles down near the corner and observes the room while she waits for the eggs and beef to come. There’s a tired crew over the other side of the room, stockyard workers in low spirits. Their hushed talk puts her on edge as she watches them. They play with their food more than eating it, and one of them, clearly the senior man, looks nauseous.

The waiter delivers her order, and before he can leave she leans forward, curiosity overcoming everything else. “Has something happened at the stockyards?” Her voice is low, but the waiter hears anyway and nods.

“Have you not heard, ma’am? They’re quarantined as of today. That foot and mouth disease, you know. It’s a whole big operation.”

Her stomach drops, appetite vanishing in a moment, the restaurant too small and closed. “I see. Thank you.” The waiter nods and walks away, tending to a young couple after walking in. Lorena leans back in her chair and contemplates the food in front of her. Now she doesn’t want to eat. Running away is far more tempting – from Chicago and the mass slaughter of livestock bound to take place, from New York and Sherlock’s rapidly approaching death, from the world at large and all of her responsibilities. She could easily go back to the ticket office and acquire a ticket back to Cheyenne. Give the Century ticket to someone else in need of it. Collect Brenn and ride into the hills, hide on everything. Or she could go on to what will be the end, watch the death of the greatest man she’s ever known.  There’s a war in Europe. She could get the boat over there and pitch in whatever bit she can – as a nurse, an ambulance driver, disguise herself and fight as a man. Better than sitting nice and safe in the States with the world collapsing around her.

The craving to run is overcome by the need to see Sherlock, just one last time. To stay with her mother and make sure that she’s all right, and John and Mycroft. To run would be a comfort, but to run would be regretful. She’d hate herself for it in time to come, wouldn’t be able to bear it and dammit but she has to pay her dues to the man.

In truth, there is no question over what she is to do. She picks up her knife and fork and cuts into the beef. It will be a long journey to New York.

* * *

 

Irene’s too worn out to think or to feel much of anything. There’s no place for worry or fear now, no place for grief either. The time for worrying has passed, the time for grief not yet arrived. And she just hopes that Lorena can get here in time.

The time is growing short. Irene may not be a woman of medicine, but she knows that much. Sherlock hasn’t woken since sometime in the night, and even then he wasn’t lucid, was convinced that John was Lestrade, feverish eyes roving them unseeingly, breaths short and pained and ragged until John gave him a hypodermic of morphine. It’s not just the morphine leaving him unconscious, it’s the sickness too, taking its natural course.

His curls brush her neck, and she cradles him closer, attuned now to his troubled breathing, so weak and rasping. John had murmured something about poultices and abscesses and fluid in the lungs. She hadn’t been paying attention, not that it mattered. Sherlock didn’t want his death averted, only made a little easier to bear. Sometimes, she can almost understand his perspective. He’d never wanted to live long enough to grow old. She’s known that for years. And now he’s somehow managed to, so perhaps it is the right time for him to bow out, even if he can still solve cases. Could still solve cases, she corrects herself. Even if John intervenes now, it wouldn’t be enough. It’s gone too far for that.

A knock comes to the downstairs door, startling Irene out of her thoughts. She hears John go to answer it, and settles back against the headboard, careful not to disturb Sherlock. It isn’t too long before John comes back up the stairs and into the room.

“Telegram from Lorena,” he says quietly, eyes passing over Sherlock’s limp form before settling on Irene’s face. “She’s taking the Century from Chicago this afternoon, says she’ll be here in the morning. Mycroft will arrange for her to be picked up from the train station.”

“She certainly has it well thought out,” Irene says, a little hoarse.

John smiles ruefully, the sadness still lingering around his eyes. “Of course she does. She’s your daughter, after all.” He sighs and presses his fingers to Sherlock’s throat, a shadow crossing his face. “You should take a break soon, get some rest. It’s going to be a long night.”

* * *

 

Lorena wouldn’t be able to sleep even she had a bed on the train, so filled is she with nerves and worry. Instead, she spends the twenty hour journey awake in her seat, mind a whirl of information and ideas and fears.

Even now, she wishes that she could have ridden all of the way to New York. Flat out, it would have taken her three and a half weeks. She’d have a worn out horse at the end for her troubles. And Sherlock would be long dead. On the plus side, she wouldn’t have this restlessness in her now. But if it comes down to shaking the restlessness or getting to see Sherlock alive one last time, then she’ll just have to deal with the tension.

He’s really dying. Every time the thought strikes her it’s as if she’s reading her mother’s telegram for the first time again. It’s the same gut-wrenching fear washing over her, the same nausea. If it weren’t for Sherlock and John, then she wouldn’t be here now. They’ve saved her mother so many times, and her mother’s saved them in turn. Often, in her childhood, she liked to think that Sherlock really was her father, and that was why she was so much cleverer than the others her age, so easily bored. She was probably about four when she first asked her mother if Sherlock was her real father, but her mother shook her head and told her the same story that she’d heard a hundred times – her father was dead but he’d been brilliant and Sherlock and John were good enough to help look after her. When she was thirteen, Irene changed the story to the truth – that she didn’t know who Lorena’s father was, and Vernet was the name she’d taken in order to pretend that she’d been married, so that Lorena wouldn’t be frowned on for her illegitimacy.

But Sherlock was always there, through everything, with some new adventure for John to tell her about. They were quite the double-act and now . . . Now Sherlock is dying, and it’s all over. (Well, not really. There are still the stories, still John and her mother, but Sherlock will be gone. And God, but it makes her want to scream.)

She doesn’t remember much of when Mrs Hudson died, only the telegram and her mother’s tears. She was too young at the time to comprehend. And when word came that Greg Lestrade was after getting murdered, she hardly cried, though her mother held her tight anyway, protecting her in her own way. When Sherlock’s mother, who was more like a grandmother to her than anything else, died in her own turn, she cried for her. Her mother, too, got hoarse and strangely reserved. Mostly, she remembers Sherlock from the funeral, tall and dark even with his hair spun through with silver, his stormy eyes watery and refusing to allow the tears to fall. She’s always suspected that he cried in private, and John or even Mycroft comforted him in their own ways. She can’t imagine being as tight with her emotions when the time comes for Sherlock’s funeral, father or not. Though, she supposes, throat constricting, she’ll know soon enough, one way or the other.

* * *

 

The night passes like treacle, and not once does Sherlock stir. Both John and Irene sit with him, shoulders together keeping him propped up. Not even that is much help to him now, body too weak and worn. His lips and under his fingernails are bluer than ever, and it is that even more than the shallow breathing or rapid pulse which makes John nauseous. It’s coming fast, and Irene knows it too. It’s written in her face.

Neither of them speak. There are no words which can do justice to this, no words which need to be said because everything has already been said – the expressions of worry, the guilt, the acknowledgement that there is nothing now which can possibly change this outcome. It is simply to be bore with and seen out.

The clock ticks relentlessly, and Sherlock’s breaths get weaker, more ragged and faint. John’s fingers are pressed into his wrist, unconsciously noting the beats of his pulse, the measure of what exactly is happening. Irene simply has her fingers wrapped around Sherlock’s, trying to warm them a little though she knows that it is futile.

There is no coughing now. His breath is but a rattle (the death rattle, a gurgling often spoken of by others in hushed voices, _the death rattle was on him_ , a line said a hundred times), weak and unnerving, too much fluid gathered in his lungs. The rattles are punctuated with gasps, but he never whimpers and never grimaces. To all intents and purposes, he is dead already.

Soon, his breathing stops with a sigh, drawn out. Irene shifts her fingers to Sherlock’s wrist, sharing a look with John as both of them feel his pulse falter and gradually dwindle until there is nothing left. John’s eyes burn with tears as he moves his hand, checking the pulse in the carotid artery which, too, has stopped. Faded. To be certain, he takes the stethoscope lying on the bedside cabinet and listens to Sherlock’s chest, searching for the beating heart which should by all rights be there. He doesn’t find it. He didn’t really think that he would.

Irene clamps down on the urge to scream, to shake life back into the limp corpse beside her. Her eyes blur, and she wraps her arms around him, head resting now on his shoulder as her tears fall against his neck.

And like that, it’s over.

* * *

 

That night on the train is a long one, filled with memories and worries. Time is gelatinous and all Lorena can do is look out of the window, unable to sleep or shut down her thoughts. Sherlock is dying, his life is slipping by as sure as this train journey is. Her fingers clench on the telegram in her pocket, the words seared on her memory. _HE’S LOW._ Low. What is that to mean? Sherlock’s spirits are low, and he hopes she’ll get there soon? Could it be as simple as that? Or is it more sinister?

He’s dying. That’s the only conclusion. The end has come, his life is drawing to a close, and John hopes that she’ll get there before the end. It’s too late for that. It’s always been too late. Tears burn her eyes. He’ll be dead before she gets there, eyes blank and body unmoving. She won’t get to say goodbye to him. She wants to be there for it, wants to do that much at least for herself more than anything, but for him too, and for John and her mother and even Mycroft. It’s selfish, but God how she wants to be there. It would feel more final that way.

She’s not going to make it in time. There’s no way that she can. John says he’s low, and accounting for John’s economy with his words in situations such as this, then it’s obvious. The knowledge hits like a blow to the chest, winding her and forcing more tears from her eyes. By the time she gets there, he’ll be already gone. Her efforts will have been in vain, sufficient only to get her to a funeral, enough to allow her to see the greatest man she’s ever known committed to the ground.

By morning, she has managed to resign herself to this. The tears have dried so that her face feels rough to the touch and her eyes are sore. She should have worn a mourning dress, and prepared for this better. At least she would look the part.

As the world brightens outside of the train’s windows, a great tiredness washes over her. She’s never liked sleeping on trains, but how she could sleep now. He’s dead, and there’s nothing more that she can do except try to run away from it, try to hide in a world where Sherlock still lives. He may not be her biological father, but he and John have been fathers to her in every way that matters, protecting her and teaching her and looking after her. Caring about her as if she was a part of the family, one of their own, and not simply Irene’s daughter.

She only hopes that she did them proud.


	11. November 01, 1914

The train pulls into the station in New York. Lorena picks up her bags before it’s even slowed to a stop and winds her way through the gathering crowd. The platform is reasonably quiet, most of the drove still behind her, cabs waiting peacefully to collect a fare.

Mycroft is waiting for her under an awning. She pauses before he sees her, heart faltering as she takes in everything that she can about his appearance – the tiredness which slackens every line of him, the drawn features, the distant look in his eyes. Her heart falters, and it’s all that she can do not to vomit there on the platform. She forces the nausea back down and carries on, palms sweating and mouth dry.

Mycroft’s eyes meet hers and he nods, before pulling her into a hug. It’s so unexpected, so out of the ordinary for him, that Lorena is shocked for a moment before hugging him back. “It’s over,” he whispers, and his voice is so hoarse that Lorena feels tears prick her eyes again. “It’s over.”

* * *

 

Sherlock is already laid out by the time Lorena gets to Bow Street. For a long time, she stands looking down at him, at the pale face and folded hands and dark suit. He could be carved from marble he’s so pale, and it’s a shock when his hand beneath her fingers is cold. Of course it’s cold, he’s been dead for hours and she knows well enough by now what death does to a body. But for _Sherlock_ to be gone cold and stiff –

It feels both real and unreal at the same time. How can this exist outside of nightmares? How is it possible? Where is the logic? (The logic is plain, obvious, and she knows it but she doesn’t want to know it. He fell ill, it was bad, he was stubborn and hence he died. It’s simple and yet, how can simplicity ever apply to him, even at his death? He defied boundaries, made rules as he went along and now – Now he’s dead. All that’s left is to bury him and carry on.(How can they ever carry on?))

He left instructions for his funeral. For a man who never thought ahead like that it’s almost as disturbing as his skin being cold beneath Lorena’s fingertips. And there, too, he demanded simplicity. Simplicity! No _memento mori,_ no elaborate ordeal. Just one night laid out in the front parlor before a morning burial. Mycroft has already engaged the minister, arranged the grave. The final service that he can perform for his brother. But there is the night to get through first before that, a long night with a corpse waiting. Only waiting. There is nothing more than this.

Irene watches Lorena from the doorway, and wishes that she could make this easier. When her own father died, she was in Austin. It was 1877. She didn’t make it home for the funeral and her uncles buried him with hardly a word to her. Her own fault, of course, for having run away. He left everything to her still, on the chance of her coming home. She sold the house and put the money by, just in case. It helped to raise Lorena, though she couldn’t have foreseen that at the time.

Not for the first time, Irene doesn’t know what to say to her daughter, how to make life a little easier for her to bear. Louisa Holmes was always better at that, and Sherlock too, of course. She’s guilty, she knows, over not getting to New York fast enough to say goodbye to him, though there was nothing that she could have done. And she’s aching so much too, because he was her hero ever since she was little more than a baby. John was more of a father to her, more overtly caring for her. But Sherlock was Sherlock. He protected her, loved her, taught her everything he knew, as did John and Mycroft and Irene herself. And yet Sherlock has always been extra special to Lorena, Irene knows. Lorena’s always been more like him than anyone else, sharply brilliant and clever, quick on the uptake and in need of knowledge, though softer, somewhat. Not as inclined towards hiding her feelings from the world though she certainly tries.

With a sigh, Irene walks into the room and stands beside Lorena, taking her hand and squeezing it. “He didn’t feel anything at the end,” she says softly, knowing that Lorena will know that anyway with her extensive knowledge of scientific subjects, but deciding that perhaps she needs to hear it. “He was too far out of it. And the laudanum and morphine helped before that.”

Lorena nods, and squeezes Irene’s hand back. “It’s just so . . .”

“I know.”

* * *

 

John is dozing in his chair in the parlor when the violin music wakes him. For one moment he thinks Sherlock is pacing and playing while working out a problem, then his eyes catch the coffin and it comes crashing back. Sherlock will play no more, those brilliant fingers stilled, and so it is Lorena who has taken possession of the violin.

It is a piece that he doesn’t recognise, one of her own compositions, and he lets it creep into his mind, permeating his thoughts. The notes are low, mournful, crying out for attention and the hollowness which has existed in his chest since he knew that Sherlock was going to die aches so badly it feels as though it will tear him in two. The music stops, and he hears Lorena’s murmuring to herself, the scratching of a pen on paper coming from the other room, before it takes off again, high for a moment before a swooping low dive. Composing, then. Of course she is. What better time than this to compose a violin piece?

_It’s for Sherlock._ The words ring through his mind as truly as if she had said them. _She’s composing for Sherlock, with his own violin. How appropriate._ The violin needs playing, of course. It hasn’t been touched since before Sherlock went to Indiana. And now, now it seems only natural that Lorena plays it and composes a piece in his honor. He’ll have left it to her anyway, along with all of the sheets with his own compositions.

And Christ, but John’s going to miss hearing that old thing played.

* * *

 

Lorena is alone in the room when she takes the violin in hand again, grip loose yet firm on the bow, and starts playing, eyes never straying from Sherlock’s body. She just plays, nothing in particular. She’d tried composing a dirge, but it wasn’t working out to her satisfaction, didn’t ease the knot in her chest and the emptiness in her stomach. Now she lets the notes flow forth as they will, mind blank.

The last time she saw him was early September. She’d come east for her mother’s birthday and they’d all gone to an orchestral performance. Mycroft had stayed away from that end of it, but Sherlock and John had come and enjoyed it. Sherlock’d hugged her when she was getting ready to board the train, kissed her forehead and made her promise to come back soon. There’d been letters and telegrams since, he’d been considering moving out to the country and keeping bees. But if she’d known it would be the last time she’d get to talk to him face to face, she would have tried harder to remember it. Would have imprinted his face in her mind, and his voice, which she finds now she’s struggling to re-call. That rich voice which got so enthusiastic over sensational crimes, which could be both cutting and gentle.

If she’d known it would be the last time . . .

She doubts if it would have been any different. What could she have said to change things? She’s never been able to put into words what he means to her, what any of them mean to her. She couldn’t have berated him for going to Indiana even when he knew he wasn’t well. She would have done the same thing, the curiosity and apprehension far too much. Would she even have gone back to Wyoming? Probably not. She probably would have stayed and gone to Indiana with him, but then it wouldn’t be the last time, would it?

She stops playing, the last notes fading out, seeping into these walls. She doesn’t need to write them down, will remember them always, because how could she ever forget them? The piece is woefully unfinished, sounds interrupted and needs to round off better, a final ending. Perhaps it ought to stay that way, perhaps it would be metaphorical, symbolic. A representation of an amazing life left unconcluded. Perhaps that would be the justifiable thing to do.

She doesn’t see herself leaving it, though. She’ll come back to it sometime – in the morning, maybe. In a week. A month. A year. Fifty years, assuming she lives that long. Sherlock could never have coped with an unfinished melody, and so she can’t just leave it hanging.

* * *

 

Irene has used all of her words already and there is nothing left for her to say. She’s bleeding out with all of the things she could have said, down through the years, at one time or another. But they are all irrelevant now and don’t matter a whit. He’s dead. She was there, she held him, felt every last breath, and now he is lying before her, stiff and pale in that coffin, body cold to the touch.

She’s known him since she was fourteen, he was sixteen. She’s run through city streets by his side, raced horses across country with him to outrun or capture murderers and thieves alike, kissed his lips in drunken fumbles, listened to him sing in Spanish, watched his mind make deductive leaps at a hundred miles an hour, shared his bed. She’s kept his nightmares at bay, and he in turn has saved her from hers. She’s seen him through illnesses and injuries that would have killed a lesser man. He saved her from her own demons, both inside and outside. He rescued her from men who would dearly love to kill her. He treated her daughter as if she was his own. He taught her about a life that she could never have imagined, gave her a family in the form of his mother who was more than willing to take her in. And now he’s dead. There is nothing more for them. That history has ceased to count. The world has moved on, passed them by.

Lorena has dozed off in her chair, the exhaustion of the last few days spent travelling across country draining from her now that the adrenaline is gone, now that the end that she was racing to beat has come. Mycroft and John are outside, taking the air and smoking at the same time. She’s never seen either of them smoke so much, but desperate times . . .

Irene sighs and looks down at Sherlock – at the silver hair and the closed eyes, the marble face and the folded hands. She traces that face with her fingers, gentle, careful, as if she could hurt him now. It’s a desperate, last ditch attempt to imprint him on her mind, how distinguished he looked even as a corpse, the planes of his face defined as ever and those delicately crafted features. He doesn’t feel real. His skin doesn’t feel like skin, and if she watches long enough she thinks that she can see his chest rise and fall. Her heart lurches for the briefest of moments before it hits her afresh that he’s dead. It is only wishful thinking that he still breathes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only a short epilogue left after this. Apologies for the melodrama and occasional repetition.


	12. November 02, 1914 and After

The funeral is quiet, as dictated. Mycroft speaks, and so does John, each of them stoic and reserved, words carefully chosen. At the gravesite, Lorena plays Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, adapted for the violin. It’s Sherlock’s own arrangement of it, which Lorena found in his notes. She wonders after if perhaps he’d intended it for this occasion, intended for her to find it and play it for him. She’ll never know.

John, watching her, and fighting back the tears from his eyes, can still feel the skin of Sherlock’s wrist under his fingers, even now feels how smooth and still it was when he searched for a pulse and couldn’t find one. His stomach lurches there at the gravesite, a cold chill across his skin as if he’s about to faint. Irene sees and takes his elbow to steady him, doing nothing to hide her own tears. This is what he’s done to them, that stubborn, ridiculous fool of a man. He’s undone them with his death, wound them back so that it feels as if nothing can ever fill the gaping hole he’s left again. And how can he be gone? How is he really gone, this time? John thought he was dead before, lost in the canyons, but he came back eventually. Surely, surely he’ll come back this time too, if they give him the chance.

It’s a delusion, the idea of Sherlock’s continued existence. John feels the ghost of him beneath his fingers and pressed to his neck. And Mycroft looks so lost and hollow. So it must be real, if Mycroft believes it.

John’s eyes burn with a fresh wave of tears.

* * *

 

A week later, when it’s all over, the dust has settled. Mycroft comes by Irene’s own house looking for Lorena. He doesn’t have to look far. She is sitting in the kitchen, carefully flicking through the collection of Sherlock’s compositions, arranging them by date. She only looks up when he sits next to her.

"He was always compulsive about putting dates on things," Mycroft says, looking resolutely at the wall. Lorena frowns and shuffles more sheet music into place. "It frequently seemed as if he had no order in his affairs, but of course he always put the date on things, and if he lost track of time, mixed up his days, he'd work it out again. His records of cases might only have the bare facts in them, but the compositions. . ." He stops and purses his lips. "My brother had the brain of a scientist or a philosopher. He was frequently both but he elected to be a detective. He cared about a lot of things, even if he didn't always show it." He trails off and sighs, looking terribly tired and old. Lorena’s never thought him old before.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Her voice is tight and hoarse. Mycroft looks over at her, eases the music out of her fingers and squeezes her hand.

"He asked me to ask you to write an introduction to his monograph and re-publish it. The 1886. I think he thought that you'd be interested in it."

"I think he was hoping that I'd pick up where he left off and take it further." _And I think that you were hoping that too._ She adds mentally, knowing that he can probably see the thought in her face.

Mycroft smiles. "Yes. I rather think he was."

"In that case, I should probably make a trip to Michigan."

* * *

 

She leaves for Michigan the next morning, with the letter from Sherlock via Mycroft in her pocket. She won’t read it, not just yet. Reading it would be accepting that he is gone and she was too late. And try as she may but she can’t bring herself to accept that. Not yet.

Two days later, John is over visiting Irene when the telegram comes back from Lorena. It says very little aside from _FOOLS WONT LET ME IN ON THE CASE_. John laughs when he reads it, and it's the first time that any of them have properly laughed in weeks. It's infectious, and soon Irene is laughing too, through the tears that streak down her face. It’s such a _Sherlock_ thing to say that it hurts to see it and know it’s not from him, though Lorena probably doesn’t realise that. And the look in John’s eyes when his own tears come show that he realises that too.

The reply, when Irene finally composes it, is simple. _THEY'LL SEE SENSE SOON_. And were he still here, Irene suspects that Sherlock would say the same thing too, along with, possibly, _IF THEY PAID ATTENTION IT WOULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN THIS FAR._ Maybe, just maybe, she thinks, they’ll be all right after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: So it is done. Not just this fic, but the series to which it belongs and which has taken me almost a year to write. I do have what might be called headcanons surrounding what happens after this, however, more than likely they will never be written. To all intents and purposes, this is the end.
> 
> I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I suppose it means now is the time to write other things.


End file.
